


A Beautiful Dress

by 912luvjaxlean



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Cocaine Blues, Episode: s01e10 Death by Miss Adventure, Episode: s03e08 Death Do Us Part, F/F, F/M, First Time, Missing Scene, Other, POV Multiple, august 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 06:32:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15858159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/912luvjaxlean/pseuds/912luvjaxlean
Summary: Each voice recalls something about 'a beautiful dress' and tells us a story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "That's a beautiful dress you're wearing. It would make a lovely decoration for my floor."

JACK:  I was so eager to undress my new wife that I tore her wedding gown. It had an endless row of buttons down the back. Satin covered, slippery and small, my large hand and long fingers made me all thumbs. Slowly, Jack, slowly, I told myself. But, I was so excited.

When we finally got it unbuttoned, it pooled on the floor at her feet. I helped her step out of the waves of silk and satin and lace. Then we were supine on the bed and Rosie reached for me. I spilled my seed on the sheet. I was mortified. She kissed me gently, reassured me. Then, went to pick up her beautiful dress that looked like a lovely decoration upon the floor.

BERT:  I took my mother shopping just before I shipped out. I wanted her to have something special to wear. She said that it cost too much even though it was a beautiful dress. Albert, she told me, why waste your money on me? Because you’re my best girl and I want you to have something brand new and not from the Salvation Army counter. I want you to have a fine dress to wear. And, to think of me when you wear it. What about this dark blue one? My sister wrote and told me that they buried my mother in that beautiful dress. I was somewhere on the Western Front when she died. I got the letter months later.

MAC:  Daisy, my darlin’, so special, so rare. Daisy with the shining eyes and soft hair. My little sweetheart in that beautiful dress I bought for you. It was a floral pattern that spoke of Spring and beginnings and romance. How sweet you were. How hungry I was. How quickly you learned to enjoy our brief moments together. You were so much more to me than a friend. I no longer believed in forever; I had hope that we might have a future. But, it was so brief a Spring, so short a life, so cruel a parting.  I attended your death scene. I saw your damaged flesh. I touched you and said goodbye. Now, with a stiff drink in hand, I try to forget your sad fate. I focus on that beautiful dress that once was a lovely decoration on my floor.

DOT:  Hugh Collins, if you don’t come out of the bathroom. I am going to take off my wedding gown myself, I thought. There we were in a lovely hotel room on our wedding night. My new husband excused himself, went into the bathroom and stayed there for quite some time. Should I knock, I wondered? What if he was doing his business? No one likes to be disturbed then.

 I stood in the middle of the room wearing my beautiful dress. Eventually he opened the door and came out in his robe and slippers. No pajamas underneath. Well, then, less to get in our way. Miss Fisher insisted that I read The Secrets of a Successful Marriage. It had drawings of positions that a man and wife could share. One whole section was about the Wedding Night. I committed that to memory.


	2. Chapter 2

MR. BUTLER: I like to remember her in that beautiful dress she wore when she was still well. It was so becoming. Mrs. Butler was never one for fashion. But, the fabric was a superb deep purple velvet and I insisted she purchase it and have it made up. She fussed because she thought the bodice was cut too low. This will take care of that, I said, as I filled the open area with a necklace. It was our twentieth anniversary.

We were ready to open our guest house and be our own bosses. She had scrimped and saved and done without. And that beautiful dress and the necklace was my way of saying: You are my queen. A woman of strength and courage and faith. She never doubted that we would succeed, if we only persevered. A woman with so much love to give and to share. Of course, it was her heart that failed her. She had such a great one.

CEC:  I want to buy Alice a beautiful dress to wear when she’s ready to leave the hospital, I said. You hardly know her, my best mate answered. Well, she can’t wear the other one it’s ruined with blood, I reminded him. Then, I just ignored Bert’s belly aching about a dress not being in our business budget. I went to that fancy clothing store over on Connors Street. When I went inside, I felt big and clumsy and stupid and the saleswomen looked down on me. I left without buying a thing.

It was Bert who told me to go to Verlaine’s. She’ll treat you right, he said. I kept looking at him as we drove there and finally had to say: You got something you’re not telling me about? Because I never saw you as being one to know anything about dresses. I bought my mother’s burial dress there, he said.

Here, take this. I took the wad of money that he shoved into my hand. I jumped out of the car before it even stopped. I was that close to crying.


	3. Chapter 3

PHRYNE:  I was a grubby little girl. When my teacher, Miss Charlesworth, convinced my father that I should stay in school, I had nothing appropriate to wear. Nothing. Mother had run off with that Italian opera singer and was somewhere on the continent. Or so Father said. And, he would be damned if he would allow her sister, Prudence Stanley, to become the guardian. He would raise his two daughters himself.

Or, should I say I raised myself and took care of my little sister, Janey? We were dirt poor and dirty. I was ashamed. I learned from Miss Charlesworth that appearances could be changed. We good use soap and water and scrub away grime. We could put on a new dress and no one would know where we’d come from. I vowed then that if I ever had money I would wear a different dress every day.

Now, I have many beautiful dresses. They often become decorations on my boudoir floor, when some lover has undressed me. Or, I first undress myself and then appear wearing a silk kimono or an exotic night dress or some wisps of lace that the man of the moment can enjoy touching and then removing. I feel the essence of the feminine when my current he desires me and wants to possess me. They seem to think they are in charge. But, I usually make love to please myself, if some man finds enjoyment, well, that’s fine.

And then, there is Jack Robinson. That stalwart, impossibly upright, honorable, annoying individual who would only come up to my boudoir if he was carried there unconscious. I lied when I told Angela Lombard that Jack had used his teeth to unfasten my dress. But, she was so insufferably smug describing his manly fingers undoing her frock that I just had to put her in her place. But, more that, I thought, you are motivated to help her undress, but can’t lift a finger to disrobe me?

Now time, as it will do, has run out. All our banter and ‘making do’ with each other, and our nightcaps, and our working together, our friendship that had caught fire, was ending. I had to return to England to reconcile my parents, yet again, and help straighten out their finances as usual. Inspector J. Robinson gave me some inside information about there being several warrants out for my father’s arrest due to shall we say ‘irregularities’ with hotel bills, an underage hotel maid, and the selling of bogus bonds. I had to make sure that Henry George Fisher, Baron of Richmond, my one and only father, would leave the Antipodes posthaste. And, I had to be his escort.

Dot and Hugh married in an intimate wedding so that I could attend and walk her up the aisle. I saw a falling star and called Jack’s attention to it. I made a wish and a plan. I would have that man. After the wedding, I took Father back to my home, gave him a generous dose of his nerve tonic, and sent him off to bed. I knew that the honorable Jack Robinson would not have me in the same house where my father was residing. So, knowing Jack, I stalked him to his lair. 

And, there he was. At his desk, close to midnight, working on reports, drinking tea (which I suspected was whisky in a teacup), brow furrowed, thinking deep thoughts, a serious man. I told the young constable that I was there to consult with the Inspector. Then, I entered and locked the door. Jack said in his romantic way: What do you want, Miss Fisher? I want to know you in the biblical sense, Inspector. Neither snark was heard nor smirk was seen. He was rendered speechless.

I walked up to left side of the desk and began opening my white fur coat. I not only dress to please myself, I said, I undress. With that I threw it open and he saw that I was naked underneath. We can’t, he whispered. We must, I replied. He stood up and I saw that he was aroused. Not here, he said, as he removed his suit coat. Where, I asked, as I loosened his tie. This way. We went into the inner hallway and down to his private washroom. In here, he said.

I went in first and waited. When he opened the door and came in, his vest was off, his braces were down, and his shirt was unbuttoned. It seems appropriate, Miss Fisher, that we should do this in a bathroom, don’t you think? He said as he touched my breasts and massaged my delicate female parts with an experienced hand as I helped him free himself from his trousers. Full circle, I said, as he began to push into me. Bookended, he remarked with a gasp. Met in a bathroom, I reminded him as I took him all the way in.

There was no more witty word play after that. It was an intense coupling. A real knee trembler like the kind you experience when you are young and desperate with desire. I insisted that he give me everything he had as he drove into me. I answered each thrust with all that I wanted to say to him. (You must understand what I have tried to show you--Touch, and passion, free love have meaning beyond vows and gravitas. Now.) We are finally communicating by fucking each other. We are in your bathroom at your workplace. And, you love it, don’t you, you honorable, serious, darling man? My beautiful fur coat is a lovely decoration on your washroom floor. As you yield to me and I possess you. You are mine. You are mine. Come after me, Jack Robinson, I demanded. And, he did.

JACK: That wasn’t so bad, was it, Jack Robinson? She asked as she entered my office a bit later, the white fur wrapped around her again. She poured us out a measure of whisky and sat across from me. To knee tremblers, she smiled. To bathrooms, I replied. We touched glasses in a final nightcap before she went on her way.

‘I think we should say goodbye here, Jack. I don’t want an emotional send off tomorrow morning. Father and I are taking off quite early. Mr. Butler will drive us there and will return with the car. It’s all arranged. Nothing is left to chance.’

Except your safe travel, I wanted to say, but refrained. Why convey any worry or concern now? She was an experienced pilot and had made her plans.

You’re awfully quiet, she said. I am vanquished, I answered. She smiled and seemed quite pleased to know that she had triumphed over all my restraint. I can still feel you, she whispered. And with that, she rose from her chair and I stood. I walked her to the door, unlocked it and she left. I didn’t follow her out to her car. We had said our goodbyes.

Early that morning, after the alarm screamed in my ear to get up, after a cold shower assaulted me, after a sadly under brewed cup of tea and a stale digestive biscuit called themselves breakfast, I stumbled out to the car, and headed for the airfield. I drove as though my life, my future, my very being depended on it. I drove as fast and as recklessly as a certain lady detective. I had to kiss her. Even if it was a kiss goodbye and her beautiful dress had never been a lovely decoration on my floor.


End file.
